More Time

We're all living longer than ever before and there's never been so much pressure to spend our lives looking and feeling young. How does this affect our 21st century experience of ageing?

Watch the video trailer here

A Wrinkle in Time video trailer, filmed by Diego Opatowski, edited by Cole Eastham-Farrelly.

With the release of the first episode of the A Wrinkle in Time podcast, Noelle McCarthy reflects on what she's learnt while making the series.

One of the nicer things was feeling - at the tender age of 37- relatively unqualified to tackle the subject of ageing. So I asked everyone I could think of to tell me about it.

Many of the experts - scientists, medical professionals and health-care workers all had thoughtful and provocative things to say about the cultural, social and emotional aspects of getting older. The academics, including philosophers and historians were helpful in explaining possible reasons why there's so much pressure on us to maintain our youthful vigour in an era of increasing longevity.

But the great thing about ageing is that it happens to all of us, so everyone has an opinion on the subject. There are some well-known personalities in this series: Buck Shelford, US news anchor Tom Brokaw, former MP Winnie Laban, activist Helen Kelly and New Zealand Poet Laureate CK Stead, but I also interviewed friends, colleagues, people who answered online adverts, friends grandparents, residents of rest homes. Anyone really. For the past six months, ageing was my preferred conversation topic.

That didn't always go down well at parties. We don't live in a culture that permits us to grow old without a struggle, and to a certain extent, it's no wonder. As Bette Davis said "old age ain't no place for sissies".

Wrinkles, grey hairs, slowness. Cancer, dementia, osteoporosis. The physical consequences of getting older may not pretty, but there's no mileage in minimising them, nor is there any point in pretending that it's not in the post for us. And we all know what's waiting at the end of the process.

The researchers I spoke to are on the cusp of major anti-ageing breakthroughs, but there's still no cure for mortality. Like ageing, death is an inevitable part of being human. This is something of a downer. A series about gradual decline and increasing physical difficulties isn't the most appealing prospect for listeners. There were a few weeks there when I wondered how to do this…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details